Is that the new LACA raffle gun?--JUST KIDDING!!!
Beautiful.

one of the best...what grade of gun is this...charlie

Lefever made some beautifully crafted guns but they seem to be under appreciated as compared to Parker, Fox, and Smith guns. Why is that?

my opinion is

one, that there are far fewer of them

and there are so many variations, the design, even within a model was often being changed, and then there were several changes to the ownership of the company (even though Fox, Parker and Smith changed ownership, the designs remained relatively unchanged)

Uncle Dan Lefever was a brilliant gun designer, but like so many, a terrible business man. every time he restarted the design changed (maybe because the patents went with the company)

it has been said that Lefever was not as interested in competing against the other American makers as much as he was in the English imports

That's absolutely stunning! Details please, gauge, weight, barrel length etc. I hope to see this gun at Hausman's this year.

There, ladies & gentleman is a WOW!!!! Fantastic work!!!

I'm sorry for the delay responding, work is always getting in the way!

So many wonderful comments, thank you to everyone!

Harold, we might have to sell just a few more tickets than normal to cover this one! :)

To answer a few of the questions and add a little more info:

This 10 ga Lefever Optimus was made around 1891. It had a pretty hard life as very early on its original stock was broken clean through the wrist and we speculate it was sent to Ithaca Gun Co. for restock. I have a photo of it when it surfaced wearing that stock. It was inletted well but the wood selection looked appropriate for a field grade gun with a checkering pattern to match. The lower portion of the trigger tang that extended to the grip cap was sadly discarded. It was re-stocked again but in a style that suited a much later gun lacking many of the attributes we associate with the early examples. When I was fortunate to become a caretaker I decided to try to get it right this time so Brian and I made a plan... I can't tell you exactly how many hours of research were involved in all the little details but suffice to say there were many! This is the fourth stock and hopefully the last it will ever need.

I think now that this long process has come full circle we have something that we can be proud of and that might have been possible to order from Uncle Dan in 1891!


Please come see us at the Southern, The Lefever Arms Collectors Association will have our display set up (normally in the main tent) and we plan to bring several wonderful examples for all to see. It's entirely possible you might even see this one ;-)

Here Brian is working on cutting in layout lines for checkering after he shaped the nose of the comb.

That is a masterpiece. Congratulations on your gun. Brian, you are one incredibly talented gunsmith!

WoW!

Thank you for the kind words Ken. It was my pleasure to work on the gun and to make it right. It has been in a sad state for far too long. And I am glad you made the commitment to make the gun right.

I pride myself in trying to be as historically accurate in any of the work that I do on these fine guns. And with so much missing on this gun, along with the fact that nearly each and every early Optimus is different, it left an uphill battle at times to try and make sure that we were making the right choices. And IF a decision had to come down to personal aesthetics, we made darn sure that the result was something that could have come out of Uncle Dan's factory in the early 1890s.